Lost Talent Chapter 1
Someone had swapped the labels on the potion bottles, and of course it was Mina’s job to sort it out. It was lucky Mr Bergamot had recognised that ‘Abington’s Peaceful Slumber’ shouldn’t have been a sparkling, fiery red before Mrs Holloway had put it in her shopping bag. If he hadn’t, she might have ended up quaffing ‘Thorndike’s Enhanced Acuity’ just before going to bed. She would have remembered every moment of a long sleepless night for the rest of her life.
Mina hadn’t noticed, but in her defence, neither had Mrs Holloway. You would have expected a customer to recognise a potion she used every day or at least ask why it was a different colour. Mr Bergamot had been profuse in his apologies, but they had lost the sale. They wouldn’t be able to sell any potions that afternoon. Mina had to go through their entire stock. They moved everything off the shelves and into the stockroom, and she spent the rest of the day sat in the dust surrounded by catalogues from their suppliers.
Organising the bottles by colour only took her so far. O’Dalaigh & Son’s product guide listed ‘Anaesthetic Brew,’ ‘Fertilising Treatment’ and ‘Expeditious Digestion’ as ‘green’ — but which was dark, which was light, and which was lime? There was only one way to know for sure. With a sigh, she lifted the dark green potion to her forehead and closed her eyes. Mina visualised herself standing in front of a giant pair of iron gates. She imagined the metal doors opening a tiny crack. The power behind them threatened to push them wide and flow into her in a great torrent. She didn’t allow it. She held the inferno in place with her mind and allowed only the smallest sliver of energy to escape. Under the pressure of her mind, she wove that power into a single golden thread, controlled and precise, and drew it across the Ether into reality.
She lifted her wooden stave from the floor of the stockroom and placed it against the glass potion vial. She directed the golden thread to flow down her arm, through her stave, and into the vial. The glass was enchanted to hold the contents in stasis until the seal was broken. She had to navigate her power around the magic in the glass without either being disrupted. From there, it passed into the potion, then into her mind.
When it arrived, her magic was resonating with everything that made the potion what it was, from the intention of the alchemist who made it to the reagents used in the brewing process. It would be down to her to use those clues to figure out which potion this was.
First came warmth, which could have meant anything, fire was fundamental in the alchemical process. There was no feeling of energy or growth. If it was the fertiliser, that would have been prominent. It must be one of the others. She sifted through the impressions and flexed the thread of power through the vial, looking for anything unique that would help her. There! A hint of something that was once alive. A reagent from a cryptid had been used as one of the ingredients. She pulled a little more power through, magnifying those images. There was a sliver of cold running like a current through the warmth, slender and reptilian. She cut off the flow of power and looked back at the catalogue. Aesculapian blood was one of the main reagents of ‘O’Dalaigh’s Anesthetic Brew.’
It matched the potion’s label. She set the vial down in an empty rack beside her and turned to the forty other potions waiting for the same examination. It was only five months since she left school, and this was her very first job. She shouldn’t be surprised that everything in the shop that was the magical equivalent of manual labour was given to her.
She knew who was responsible for this mess. Silas Overton treated the emporium like his own personal playground while his mother was shopping. Madam Overton demanded Mina’s full attention as she considered every purchase like it could change the fate of nations. She refused to take anything off the shelves herself, making Mina do it for her. She wasn’t sure what she had done to earn the enmity of young Silas. It was conceivable that he was just driven to mischief by boredom. Every time they visited the shop, Mina found something out of place, but this was a definite escalation.
Her frustration made it difficult to focus. She couldn’t help fantasising about ways to take childish revenge on her diminutive tormentor. If her years at Oakward Academy for the Talented had taught her anything, it was how to inflict minor magical inconveniences on people without getting caught. She had to remind herself that Silas was just a child, and at eighteen, she wasn’t anymore. Madam Overton spent a lot of money in the Emporium, and as the wife of a senior magister she had a lot of influence in arcane society. If her snot-nosed son suffered a minor accident on the premises, she could take offence and tell everyone.
They just had to tolerate him, like everyone else in the demesne. In less than a year, he would be off to The Academy, and that would give them a reprieve from his mischief.
By the time Mina finished with the potions, it was already five o’clock and the sunlight had faded on the street outside. Although the demesne was cloaked in shadow, she could see the glow of electric streetlights over the buildings opposite. It might be time for them to close up shop, but the untalented population of London never stopped.
She took the potions back to the storage rack and carefully put them where they belonged. “All finished, Mr Bergamot. It was just the four in the end.”
Mr Bergamot was perched on a stool by the counter. He was exactly what you would expect to see if you walked into a magic shop: a man in his mid-fifties, with a well-trimmed goatee and a friendly twinkle in his eyes. He clasped his hands to his heart in relief. “Thank you so much, my dear! Please forgive me for making you do that. If Gabriel or I had tried, we might not have been done by midday tomorrow. You’ve saved us a whole day’s business.”
That was an exaggeration, if she had done it, so could any-one else. Instead Bergamot had stayed at the counter, hoping to sell a big-ticket item that would make up for lack of potions sales that day.
Magical foci and complex enchanted items were not impulse buys, but if anyone could have sold one, it was Bergamot. He had an affable manner and never pushed unnecessary purchases on his customers. Besides, his regular perch at the counter put him in prime position for gossiping with the regulars. That was quite taxing in its own way, but Mina was sure that it had never provoked a headache like the one she was developing.
“Still, you can’t be too careful,” he added.
Mina hid her shame by facing the potion rack. She knew she had been distracted by boredom earlier. “I’ll try to pay attention next time.”
He moved next to her and helped her re-shelve the last few potions. “It’s not your fault, my dear.” He patted her arm. “I know how demanding our customers can be. No harm done.”
Not this time perhaps. But if it happened once, it could happen again. “I know someone who could brew us a clear adhesive,” she said. “We could coat the labels with it, to stop anyone from messing with them.”
“Ah, yes, your alchemist friend. Certainly, something to consider.”
Sol would be happy for the business; that kind of alchemy was one of his specialties, and she missed him. She hoped that he was doing alright. He had chosen a much more challenging path than hers and had been far too busy to meet up. If she told him they had some business for him, he wouldn’t be able to use that excuse. She could see him during work hours and finally ask him if he had been avoiding her. It might even be enough to coax Heidi to join them for lunch. All she would need was a way to invite Beryl and the four of them would be in the same room for the first time since they left school.
Burgamot didn’t feel the need to fill the silence of her daydreams with conversation for once while they put everything back where it belonged. Mina was frustrated that the little terror behind it all suffered no consequences. That child should have known potions were not to be messed with.
After they finished, Mr Bergamot took off his apron and hung it behind the counter. “Well, I think that is more than enough for today. Will you be okay closing up?”
It was nice that he asked. He could easily have made it an order, but when the boss asks you to do something, there really wasn’t a great deal of difference between the two. She tried to banish the exhaustion from her voice. “Of course. Tell Mr Mandragora I’ll see him in the morning.”
Mr Bergamot waved a farewell and set off up the stairs to the apartment he shared with his husband. With a great deal of pleasure, Mina clicked the latch on the door and turned the sign to ‘closed.’ She wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but her own sense of responsibility wouldn’t let her. Even now there were a myriad of jobs that needed to be done, including everything that had been missed that afternoon. She didn’t have the energy to do them with magic. Trying to evoke when you were tired was what led to making mistakes, and she couldn’t afford any more of those today. Look on the bright side, she told herself, at least you haven’t got far to go to get home.
*
The loft she shared with Heidi was on the top floor of the building. It was sparsely decorated, and very open plan, but they had done their best to make it comfortable. A fire was lit in the hearth, casting a comforting light and warmth over the space.
Heidi was standing over the worktable they had setup between the garret windows. It was likely She hadn’t moved from that spot all day. She was consumed with trying to make progress on her current project: refining ‘Hallinger’s Undue Expiration.’ She wore a baggy jumper with holes in the elbows and comfy old jeans. She didn’t react when Mina entered. She was in the middle of evoking, and a glow of light from the table formed a halo in her curly red hair. Mina should have sensed the buildup of magic in the room sooner, but exhaustion had dulled her senses. Curious to see how she was doing, Mina walked quietly up and peeked over her shoulder.
In front of Heidi was a wooden bowl filled with four avocados that had roughly been cut in half. She held her hand steady above it, the ruby ring on her finger flashing with light. A circle of glyphs had formed around the bowl, glowing and sparking against the wood. That meant things weren’t going well. If an evocation produced light, it was a sign the work was bleeding excess energy rather than doing what it should. The runes flickered as the power flow fluctuated, and Mina could see Heidi’s body tense as she pushed more energy into the evocation. Mina reflexively hid behind her shorter friend as whisps of smoke rose from the table. If light was a bad sign, heat was worse.
There was a pop and an inrushing of air, and the magic drained from the room. When Mina looked back at the table, the colour was rapidly fading from the avocados. As they watched, the fruit wrinkled and shrunk, absorbing the evocation’s excess power.
Heidi threw up her hands in frustration. “Damnit!”
Mina covered her nose as a retched smell filled the loft. “At least they didn’t explode this time?”
Heidi picked up the bowl and dumped its contents into the pedal bin under the table. There were at least two other batches in there, and an ever stronger wave of stench wafted out as it closed. Normally Mina would have stepped in and emptied it, but she needed food before she could face any more chores. Heidi had probably skipped lunch as well. When she was frustrated like this, Mina had to remind her to eat and sleep before she collapsed.
Heidi flipped open a leatherbound notebook and scribbled some notes next to a diagram of the evocation. “I don’t understand it. It’s so finely balanced. As soon as I mess with it in any way, it collapses in on itself.”
Mina moved to the kitchenette next to the stairs, searching for food. All she found was two pots of instant noodles. She didn’t have the energy to cook something elaborate anyway. She filled up the kettle and hung it over the hearth. “You still think that you can make it into something more useful?” she said.
“It must have other applications. I can’t believe someone would spend so much effort just on an evocation to preserve soft fruit.”
Mina couldn’t help but smile as she sat on one of their leather armchairs near the hearth. “Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”
Heidi opened her mouth to reply before pausing and thinking it over. “I suppose you’re right.” She joined Mina in front of the fire. “How did your day go?”
As they ate, Mina told Heidi about the chaos in the shop. Mina didn’t mention who she thought was responsible. She didn’t want Heidi giving the Overtons a public dressing down if she bumped into them around the demesne.
Instant noodles didn’t qualify as a meal in Mina’s mind, but her body disagreed enough to be satisfied. When they finished, Heidi went back to her work, leaving Mina to be hypnotised by the glowing embers of the fire. Her bed was only meters away, but she didn’t care. She allowed herself to drift into sleep, listening to the sound of her roommate’s tinkering and the distant noise of London traffic.
It wasn’t a restful sleep. Her mind was haunted by images of her time at the Academy. Images of lessons and adventures blurred together, while she sat chained to her desk, unable to escape.
“Mina!” Heidi shook her awake. “Mina! Wake Up!”
She nearly fell out of the chair as she woke, thrashing at the sudden freedom of her limbs. “Ahhh! What? What’s wrong?”
Heidi was standing over her with a piece of parchment clutched in her hand. “We need to go. Solomon’s in trouble.”